Measures Of Performance

Introduction

In the traditional office working environment, a staff member will have their own desk, chair, pedestal, PC and phone within their own space. Now, with the rise of more and more “new age” companies the traditional office working environment looks to be becoming a thing of the past. With more and more companies looking to improve the way that they conduct their operations, the 9-5 fully staffed office building seems to be slowly disappearing.

Traditional office space is giving way to community areas with empty chairs and desks as more staff are working from home, from their cars or anywhere that they can get access to the core essentials. But why is this happening now? Is it the rise of lease and rental rates that is making senior staff members look at the vast sums spent on real estate? Or is it the operating costs which are possibly mind bogglingly high? Or is it that now with the sophisticated levels of technology available, this just is an opportunity that can’t be passed up.

Of course not only organisations will reap the benefits of the current buzz for change. By being flexible with the space offered to staff and without the necessity of employees being in a building in a central location during normal working hours, companies may find that they can retain key personnel that may have been lost to a newborn baby, a move to another city or some other issue which may have meant they would have had to leave the organisation.

Working away from the office is nothing new but with the current high level specifications of laptops, modems, ISDN lines and telephone systems available, more companies are investigating the pros and cons of implementing such a strategy. And it is this new strategy that is forcing FM departments around the world to review how space is allocated throughout the working environment.

The Scandinavian countries seem to have stolen a march on the rest of Europe with this working solution as many have organisations already operate using this working concept. Guesting, Cottaging , Caves, are just some of the terminology used when operating within a flexible working environment and although it can take time to grasp this working culture, there are clear advantages with operating this way. This paper will look at the pros and cons of implementing such a strategy into an already traditional working environment.

Is there a need for change?

Over the last decade, there have been significant cultural changes in how organisations behave and work. Different company objectives and priorities have lead organisations to disband from the traditional working environment and lean towards a more diverse approach as to how business is conducted by staff members. As in various sectors, staff may be spending long periods of the day or indeed weeks off site. This has led more organisations to look into how to utilise their office space to its full potential. One of the reasons for this potential change in strategy is the development in the IT sector and how an organisations staff is able to communicate with each other and its customers.

Networking, wireless technology, and telecommunication advances have been one of the main contributors to this idea that dedicated space for staff could potentially become a thing of the past.

Another reason for organisations to look into a change of strategic approach is the ever rising costs that come with owning or leasing real estate and the operational costs that come with running large buildings especially within the city centres. In a 2005 report from one leading property firm, Jones Lang LaSalle, it is stated that in Edinburgh city centre office rental rates will rise by 11% between the year 2005 & 2007, well above the inflation rate, due to a lack of quality new available space. Cameron Stott, JLL country director, said: "We are predicting a shortage of office space in Edinburgh. What you will see first is incentive packages being reduced, and then rents may begin to rise." (1)

British land chief executive Stephen Hester has also been making the same noises about rental prices in London. He said “London office vacancy rates continue to tighten, resulting in rental growth and reduction of letting incentives which are now clearly evident” (2). With these significant cost increases, more and more companies have to look at how to minimise the amount of space used to an acceptable level for the company to operate.

Of course not all business types are able to follow such a strategy. Businesses such as construction, fast food or companies that depend on physical movement will have limitations. But companies such as travel, property and real estate, transportation and customer site sales could potentially reap the benefits of such a strategy. Some of these would involve flexible working operations and others would involve mobile teams that must be able to communicate effectively.

Probably the biggest hurdle to overcome when looking into implementing such a plan is the cultural impact that this will have on staff that are used to doing a 9-5 job within their own work space, having their own filing space and having regular face to face contact with co-workers. In most organisations people issues, perceptions and problems are subjects which would generally fall under the HR heading but with more and more companies looking or sometimes being forced into this new direction, most HR processes would be seen as out of date in this new climate.

Nutt and McLennan argue that “As a result, some of the long established approaches to human resources (HR) management and its whole workplace support are becoming inconsistent with the needs of the modern business”.

I find this statement very relevant as most HR processes right now would be consistent with the 9-5 traditional office working environment and not an office with flexible working conditions for example.

Nut and McLennan continue. “The consensus of the late 1990s has been that these changes are driven by:-

в?™ Information Technology: the impact of telecommunications, networked PC systems, the

internet and cordless technology, expanding the ways in which businesses communicate

one with another, and fundamentally changing locational constraints and opportunities

for organisations.